A bit about the deck. While playtesting, I felt everything was Ok except for the 2 phyrexian totems slots. I kept
playing around with it and couldn't figure out what could help the deck more so I decided to go with more beaters.
Downside to the totems is that it's super mana intensive in this deck. a lot of times you're going to have to
decide to attack or cast spells and sometimes it makes a huge difference. The reason why my sideboard is like this
is because reanimator is around 20% of the field here and tribal makes another 20%.

Due to PTQ and another legacy tournament that happened on the same day, we only got 8 players. Sadness

Round 1: CounterGoyf (2-0)

Game 1 - At first I thought he was playing New Horizons since he had Horizon Canopy but never saw any terravores.
Anyways, I don't remember much about this match as it's always relatively grueling as I'm always playing around daze
while trying to pull out as many Swords to Plowshares out of his hand since I have so few win conditions. I won
this game by casting a tombstalker and having a bloodghast in play and I kept on removing his creatures using
innocent bloods and smallpoxes so I can swing with a tombstalker.

Sideboard: +3 Pithing Needle, -3 Pox. I probably sideboarded in wrong here but I felt like I didn't want to lose
that much life to my own pox.

Game 2 - Very similar to the first game except I killed him with the Phyrexian Totem instead of a Tombstalker.
Never saw the Pithing Needle the entire game.

Round 2: Zoo (1-2)

Game 1 - He kept a slow hand and didn't have a turn 1 play. Meanwhile, I managed to kill 4 of his lands with
wastelands, smallpoxes and sinkholes and pulled out his Path to Exiles with discard and then rode the tombstalker to
victory.

Sideboard: +3 Engineered Plague, -2 Phyrexian Totem, -1 Pox. Again, probably sideboarded wrong here. Usually in
playtesting, this deck rocks aggro decks because of all the creature kill and land kill. And 1 engineered plague on
Cat doesn't kill anything at all so this was probably the wrong move.

Game 2 - I draw a total of 2 swamps and a wasteland the entire game and wasn't able to cast my 2 gatekeepers and he
beat me down with a goyf and a steppe lynx. *sigh*.

Game 3 - I kept an opening hand with 2 thoughtseize, 2 wasteland and 3 swamps. I felt like I should be able to draw
into something else within the first 3 turns. 7 turns later, i had 5 swamps in play, 3 swamps in hand and died.

Looked at the top 5 cards in my libarary and saw 3 land, a thoughtseize and another land. oh well, that's magic for you.

Round 3: U/B Control (2-1)

Game 1 - First turn i Inquisition him and saw maindeck extirpate. WOW. that had to go ASAP. Rest of the game, I tried my best to keep him off his black mana and eventually rode the tombstalker to victory.

Sideboard: +3 Pithing Needles, -3 Pox. Again, not quite sure if boarding out the poxes were the right move.

Game 2 - I had 2 needles opening hand and put it at Jitte and Volrath's Stronghold since he had one in his hand. he
eventually drew a dark ritual and then ritualed out a vampire nighthawk and i was like what?!?! since I knew he had a tombstalker in hand and he had 8 cards in graveyard. He misplayed and I had to innocent blood the nighthawk and pray he didn't draw his 2nd swamp and he topdecked it and cast the tombstalker. I had no creature removal and was
trying to race with the phyrexian totems and couldn't draw a creature kill for the next 3 turns.

Game 3 - Similar to game 1. Tried to kill his black sources so he couldn't cast threats and then got a quick
Tombstalker out.

Top 4: Canadian Thresh variant (no mongoose and stifle, had standstill and mutavaults) (2-1)

Game 1 - I had him down to one mutavault early game and inquisitioned him. Saw a standstill and brainstorm and for
some reason, i thought that brainstorm was more potent so i had him discard that and I planned on a quick tombstalker the next turn. As it turns out, he topdecks a blue dualland and cast standstill. I had to break it on my turn as I had no instants and he just kept on chaining standstill after standstill and when the 3rd one was on the table, he actually discarded the 4th one in his hand. *sigh*. I lost that one as I couldn't draw a wasteland against the mutavault.

Game 2 - did my usual disruption, destroyed a bunch of his land and pulled his threats from his hand. Rode the
tombstalker and bloodghasts to victory.

Game 3 - I got him down to 2 land early but one was a mutavault and I didn't have a creature so started swinging. I
knew he had a FoW and a blue card in his hand when I tried to sinkhole the mutavault but he decided to let it through for some reason. That was pretty much the turning point of the game as I forced him to use the Force on something and managed to kill all his other threats afterwards and rode the Tombstalker to victory.

Afterwards, I asked him why he didn't protect his mutavault and he said that he didn't want to use that many resources on trying to protect the mutavault since if he did that, he wouldn't be able to develop his board. Not sure if that was the right decision but I'm pretty certain it was the turning point of the game as he no longer dealt damage to me.

Finals: CounterGoyf (2-0)

Game 1 - My first round opponent again. Asked if he wanted to split the prize and he didn't want to. I mulled to 6 and I played turn 1 and turn 2 discard effects and got rid of 2 plows since he had nothing else. Then on turn 3, he was able to get top and counterbalance on the table. I thought I was screwed for this game as he ended up having a goyf on the table with countertop and lands plus he had 2 dazes so I had to play around them as well. I was really low on life when I somehow was able to get a tombstalker in play along with a bloodghast and for some reason, he decided to put the top on top of his library and shuffle it away and played a 2nd goyf. I was then able to resolve innocent blood and smallpox to kill both his creatures while my bloodghast were sacrificed and was able to win with the tombstalker.

sideboard: +3 Pithing Needle, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Gatekeeper, -1 Pox. Again, I probably boarded out the wrong
cards. I should have boarded out the innocent bloods as they are useless as soon as countertop hits the table.

Game 2 - this game was pretty epic. I had an opening hand of 3 bloodghasts, 1 gatekeeper, 1 wasteland, 2 swamps. I
drew into 2 inquisitions and got him to discard a plow and a knight of the relinquary. He also had a counterbalance out around 3rd turn and I think he countered 1 spell with the counterbalance this entire game. I was playing around daze the entire game as well. I was doing quite well until he cast a war monk around turn 5 and I only had 2 bloodghasts on the table. I was able to destroy his only source of green which would be key as he didn't draw another green source for the next 5 turns. Meanwhile, I was taking the war monk beats and he ended up going to around 30 life. Finally I had 5 swamps in play as well as a volrath's stronghold and the game started to turn here. He had 2 war monks in play by then and the only thing I could do was gatekeeper recursion. Basically I had to hope that my gatekeepers couldn't be countered by counterbalance as I knew he only had a daze in his hand along with a boatload of creatures. I got lucky and managed to kill around 5 creatures with the same gatekeeper and only got countered by the counterbalance once. I stablized at 5 life while he was at high 20s and started swinging with 3 bloodghasts and 1 gatekeeper. When he was at 6, he was able to cast another war monk and I was able to pox it away as his counterbalance whiffed again. After the pox, he ran out of land and wasn't able to cast the clique and I won.

Some afterthoughts about the deck:

Now that mystical tutor is banned, I'm probably going to take out the 4 leylines and replace it with 4 extirpates. The extirpates should make the countertop matchup more bearable as I should be able to force them to discard a key spell and then extirpate it. I'll probably keep the chalices in as combo should get slow enough that I won't die before casting chalice for 1 on turn 2. I'm also thinking about increasing to 2 volrath's stronghold but i'm kind of concerned about the fact i'll have too many colorless lands and i really don't want to play Tomb of Yawgmoth. I also find myself boarding out pox or discarding pox that maybe the 4 pox slots should be something else as well. they are good against countertop though as it is a 3CC spell. This deck still needs a lot of finetuning but I would definately take it to another tournament.

mujadaddy

06-21-2010, 02:47 PM

Good stuff. Congrats.

Chalice should've probably come in vs. Zoo.

The Treefolk Master

06-22-2010, 02:07 PM

Why is there no Hymn to tourach?

pechunato

06-22-2010, 03:52 PM

Congratulations!

Just a couple of questions: how have been working for you Sinkhole and Bloodghast? Sinkhole isn't as strong as I would like and Bloodghast isn't a very good offensive/defensive creature, and it's recursion is just okay.

danyul

06-23-2010, 04:12 AM

A singleton Urborg couldn't hurt if you are having the occasional color issue with all those Wastelands and whatnot. Looks like a fun deck.

edit - nvm. You said you didn't want to run it. Missed that.

pocari79

06-23-2010, 08:09 AM

Treefolk Master - I don't like Hymn to Tourach very much because even though there are times it's a beating, there are many other times where you pull 2 cards that weren't going to affect the game because they have no lands. Also against reanimator, if they're stuck with a guy in their hand, you're giving them a chance to discard it which is really bad. I'd rather just go with controlled discard.

Pechunato - I really like Sinkhole and Bloodghast. Sinkhole's pretty much the only guarenteed way for you to force the opponent to kill basic land and I always target a basic land if i'm able to. There are also situations where the opponent only has fetchlands and you have a Wasteland in play and Sinkhole in hand. In that case, I'd waste the fetchland to see if they crack. If they do, Sinkhole the land they bring out. it might not be the most efficient use of the wasteland + sinkhole combination but at least you are denying them mana on your turn. Bloodghasts are great because they enable me to cast a fast tombstalker and not have it die when I cast innocent blood / smallpox / pox. Also, the ability to play just one land and have 4-6 power worth of creatures come back into play ready to attack is pretty good. Sometimes I do wish they dealt more damage or could block but if it could do either of those things, it would be even more busted.

Danyul - Unless i'm playing against a mono-color deck, the wastelands always kills something the turn it comes into play. There's virtually no need for colorless mana in this deck so i never miss not having the land produce mana. The only concern i have with my lands are if I start playing with 2 Volrath's Stronghold and if I get both lands in opening hand. It shouldn't happen very often but when it does it'll probably slow me down a lot.